


And the Revised Strategy

by soresu_master



Category: The Librarians (TV 2014)
Genre: Evlynn, F/M, Flynn introspective, Flynn-centric, Not gonna lie though mostly Flynn-centric, canon compliant up to the end of season 2, kind of veers off afterwards though, season 3-based, team fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-20
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-23 15:18:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,263
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8332567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soresu_master/pseuds/soresu_master
Summary: "If he thought things through, if he planned things out...he wouldn’t know what to do when the whole situation went pear-shaped. In fact, Flynn’s almost a hundred percent sure that the only reason he’s still alive is that he’s just lucky."Evlynn. Posted in honour of hitting the one-more-month point.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to say this a part of some fancy collection or for some prestigious competition, but I have no claim on that. All I can say is that I'll be updating this likely once a week until the Season 3 premiere airs, and it'll be four chapters total. 
> 
> The rating may go up to M by the end if things go according to plan (ha, me, having a plan, isn't that just strange?). But you never know -- I tend not to follow plans as a general rule. But at the same time, there's absolutely nothing wrong with Evlynn smut, and there's not enough of it. 
> 
> Anyway, the chapters are going to be fairly short, but I do tend to get carried away and they may get longer as I go. 
> 
> Please, enjoy. I'm actually pretty proud of this.

 

* * *

 

_"You're like a mirror, reflecting me_   
_Takes one to know one, so take it from me_   
_You've been lonely_   
_You've been lonely, too long"_

_-Dust to Dust, The Civil Wars_

* * *

 

 

Flynn Carsen doesn’t do plans. He never has, his brain is mostly just too scattered to even think of it. Because, and here’s the truth, something he’s never admitted -- even if he made a plan, he probably wouldn’t remember it. Not that he _doesn’t_ have a photographic memory, because oh, he knows he does. It’s just with everything else stacked up in that filing cabinet of a mind, a plan is of so little importance to him.

 

 _(it’s that damn photographic memory that’s kept him sane all these years,_  
_it’s the one thing that’s kept him grounded._  
_and it’s a constant reminder that no matter how much he’d like to forget at least half the things he’s seen,_  
_he knows damn well that he can’t._  
_that’s not always comforting.)_

 

But the fact is, when he’s running for his life, he’s focused on that. His mind works spur of the moment, and sometimes, he’s not sure that Eve understands that. Which, he supposes, is fine. He wasn’t raised like her, like a soldier. Plans had never been a part of his day-to-day life -- he just took things and dealt with them as they came. The same strategy applied to the Library. If he thought things through, if he planned things out...he wouldn’t know what to do when the whole situation went pear-shaped.

 

In fact, Flynn’s almost a hundred percent sure that the only reason he’s still alive is that he’s just _lucky_.

 

 _(of course, that’s not what he says._  
_no, he has the junior Librarians convinced that the reason he gives is that he’s ‘just that good.’_  
 _just that smart._  
 _because anything to intimidate Ezekiel Jones, right?_  
 _who of course is barely impressed._  
 _damn that kid.)_

 

So, really, when the time comes that he realises that this thing with Eve is real, more real than anything, his first instinct is to blurt something out. Why waste time stressing over planning? Because he would. He would stress and stress and overthink and he already knows that if he overthinks it, he’ll chicken out. And he doesn’t want to. Because Eve is the realest _real_ he’s ever known and above all else, he doesn’t want to lose her.

 

Because now that he _has_ her, and as cheesy as he knows it sounds, he can’t imagine his own life without her.

 

So this is what he does. He makes a mental list. He buys a ring. Something classy. Something very _Eve_.

 

 _(that part was a spur-of-the-moment choice._  
_he just saw it and knew it was hers._  
 _it had to be hers. no one else’s._  
 _his original idea had been to use his mother’s engagement ring,_  
 _something he still kept with him._  
 _it was one of the many items in an old, iron-wrought box that he kept in his apartment._  
 _a box that only Eve herself had ever seen.)_

 

Then he makes reservations at that fancy Italian place down the road from her apartment -- it’s the place he’d taken her after that mission with that rogue centaur, he knows, and it’s also the place where he had, eventually, told her that he loves her. So it’s sort of a place of firsts. And that’s sort of a big deal, because he’s never really had that. He’s never had a relationship with a woman that’s lasted as long as the relationship he’s had with Eve. And honestly, he’s just hoping against hope that it’s not too soon, that she needs more time, that...for some reason, that she’ll tell him no. That a proposal will screw up everything they’ve built together.

 

They’re all set to go to dinner, and Flynn can feel his nerves go all jittery, when the two of them are called into work. Cassandra and Stone have been captured by the deadly Scorpion League, and on the phone, Ezekiel sounds rightfully terrified. Flynn’s intimately familiar with what happens in their prisons, as he reminds Eve, given that he’s had to escape from them enough times. But the first time...well, there comes that sucky thing about having a photographic memory. The _torture_ is just as vivid as ever, and when he flinches, Eve places a hand on his arm to soothe him. It helps, but it doesn’t erase it.

 

But it does help enough to assist with a plan, once the back door flashes white-blue and Ezekiel tumbles through, clothes filthy and face pale, eyes wide and scared. Flynn’s enthusiastic as ever as he recalls the prisons he knows about, though tactfully leaving out the part about torture. Because he knows Eve can take it, but Ezekiel’s far younger than Flynn had been. And despite what he says to the contrary, he _does_ care about the youngest member of their ragtag team.

 

Eve’s impressed with him, he thinks, and once Jenkins dials up Cardiff, Wales, a confident smile comes to her face.

 

“Let’s get our Librarians back,” she tells him, and Flynn can’t help but feel energised. That’s one of the many things she did for him -- she breathed life back into him. She gave him strength when he had none, and hope when he had convinced himself that there was nothing to be done. Eve gave him a reason to continue on fighting, to _never give up_ even when things seemed impossible and the odds were stacked against them.

 

He nods at her. “Okay.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, sorry -- this is so much later than I'd planned it to be, I was supposed to upload this by this past Thursday. I've just been between being super busy and being in a horrible mood. So I didn't get around to fine-tuning it until now, and I added a few more paragraphs to what I'd had before.
> 
> But I like this chapter rather a lot, so I hope it makes sense. 
> 
> A note -- I started writing this fic before we learned anything about the D.O.S.A., so I will try to include the limited bit we do know, but it may only be a mention or so. 
> 
> Please, enjoy.

* * *

 

 _"I tried to live alone but lonely is so lonely, alone_  
_So human as I am, I had to give up my defenses_  
_So I smiled and tried to mean it, to let myself let go"_

_-Any Other World, MIKA_

* * *

 

It turns out that the new headquarters of the deadly Scorpion League couldn’t be more different than the steel-plated penitentiary Flynn’s familiar with. No, unless he’s quite mistaken, this looks more like a cave, or a messy maze from some long-forgotten mythological tale. There’s about a million places he’d rather be – the harpies were active this time of year, weren’t they?

 

But there’s something in the magic that tells him explicitly that his Librarians are here. And really, not far at all. He can almost hear their voices in his mind, telling him that they’re there, that they’re okay, at least for the time being. And Flynn, well, he has to tell himself that. Despite the way they had come into his life – well, that’s just the strangest thing, isn’t it? He hadn’t needed anyone or anything.

 

Now, he can’t imagine his life without each and every one of them. And, oddly…everything that’s come to pass since meeting them, Flynn can’t bring himself to regret.

 

“It’s this way,” says Ezekiel, and for the first time Flynn seems to realise that Ezekiel had been able to escape. And instead of staging some rescue scheme, he had gone to _them_ for help. If that didn’t prove how well this team of Librarians worked – _without him_ – then he didn’t know what would.

 

 _(it’s not that he’s not pleased with Eve’s results, no, in fact he’s immensely proud of them._  
_but he’s never felt like so much of an outsider in the one place he’d ever truly considered home._  
_it feels different now._  
_not necessarily good or bad, just different._  
_and he has to wrap his head around that, still.)_

 

With a torch in Flynn’s hand and Eve’s fingertips brushing the gun strapped to her hip, they make their way down the dusty, dirt-covered hallway. His low voice is going on about an Atlantean weapon that had fallen into the deadly Scorpion League’s hands the last time he’d gone up against them, and somehow that conversation dissolved into how he’d vanquished the Djinn from Aladdin’s Lamp.

 

 _(Eve almost laughs out loud at that part:_  
_she didn’t quite have the heart to inform him that he hadn’t exactly completed that mission as much as he'd thought._  
_oh, and…they never did have T H A T conversation.)_

They’re keeping their voices down – mostly Flynn, who’s now on the topic of street performers and how he’d once discovered one who’d been using real magic, except of course it was something he hadn’t understood. And then, all of a sudden, it’s like the torch is supercharged, and the dusty hallway floods with a fiery light.

 

Flynn and Eve are back-to-back, Guardian drawing her gun. And despite his above-average height, Flynn thinks that these men have to be at least twice his size. A few shots ring out, and he hears a body drop. He turns his head just quick enough to duck before his enemy of choice gets hit with one hell of a right hook from a figure that he’s never been happier to see.

 

“Thanks for that,” he says breathlessly, before he grabs her hand and runs. Librarian or not, Flynn’s a scholar, not a fighter. And regardless of Eve’s training, he’s seen her die. Able to prevent it or not, he refuses to watch it happen again. His palm is sweaty and his face is covered in dirt, but his heart is racing with exhilaration, and really, there’s no place he’d rather be.

 

And somewhere in that mind of his, Flynn marvels at how Simone had known him so well after knowing him for so little a time. This is where he’s meant to be, and she had seen that in him after knowing him for mere days. Eve had known it after just as long. They had refused to watch him give up, give into a momentary desire.

 

And now here he is, running hand-in-hand with his Guardian, doing exactly what he was meant to be doing. And when it was time to go home? He had a home to return to. And for the first time his home was not merely a building. They were getting their family back, and returning home together – or not at all.

 

That’s when Flynn realises that this isn’t simply who he is, this is who they are. Being the Librarian defines him, but Eve isn’t a stand-in Guardian, she _is_ his Guardian. This job’s changed her just as his changed him once, all those years ago. She’d once recovered bombs and fought soldiers on opposing sides of a war – that wasn’t her job anymore. She now specialised in the weird and the unexplainable, she took down minotaurs and kelpies, even the occasional fictional bad guy.

 

This isn’t a life that he’s living alone anymore.

 

 _(this is their life._  
_this is a life they share,_  
_and it’s a life they’ll share until the moment they die.)_

 

That’s when Flynn’s spur-of-the-moment thinking pops in, and though he can’t help wondering for a split second why he’s asking this now, he simply blurts it out once they pause for breath.

 

“Marry me.” He’s sweaty, dirty, and he’s pretty sure his tie is completely ripped to shreds, but there’s a beaming, hopeful grin on his face. Eve’s blindsided, though, and she’s blinking at him, mouth forming a confused O shape.

 

“ _What_ did you say?”

 

Flynn spreads his hands hurriedly, as if it’s going to make her see how completely serious he is. “I mean it, Eve. _Marry me_. You know, when we’re not—“

 

But more deadly Scorpion League members have caught up with them, and in the next second they’re running. The spur-of-the-moment proposal has vanished from Flynn’s mind, replaced by a made-up map of the facility and how they’re going to get Stone and Cassandra out of this place. He at least hopes that Ezekiel’s managed to find them – because their world-class thief seems to have stolen away.

 

They stop again to catch their breath, and while Flynn’s sucking in breaths, Eve’s unable to catch her breaths. “You did _not_ just _propose_ to me, right now,” she seethes at him, to which Flynn blinks at her in confusion. Okay, clearly she seems _angry_ at him, what, because he – _oh_.

 

“ _Um—_ “

 

This time, Flynn manages to look up at her face, and there’s that flushed excitement he sees written into every pore of her skin, the jittery nerves he sees from every one of them when they’re on the run from all those monsters and things that’re always chasing them. But for once, that’s not all he sees. Because although Eve’s expression is frozen, her eyes are darting around the cavern and he knows, he just _knows_ that’s not just from her overdeveloped instincts. His proposal had terrified her. He doesn’t know _why_ , not exactly, that’s something he should ask her – and he opens his mouth to say exactly that when Eve clamps her hand down over his mouth. “ _Sshhhh_.”

 

“We are going to talk about… _this_ …later,” she tells him, all the while keeping her hand over his lips, even as he whines at her. “ _At length_.” Flynn sucks in a breath when she finally releases him, and though he doesn’t know what to make of _any_ of this, he knows this much: the mission comes first. The job comes first, for them, it always has. Old way or not…well, except, that’s exactly it. They deal in life and death every day, making bargains with their own lives in the hopes of saving the world. And often times, there’s no way of knowing if they’ll even come back home alive. “But for _now_ , Librarian…” And then there’s that smile. And Flynn knows that everything’s going to be okay. “What do you say we get our family back?”


End file.
